R.S. Thomas Quotes

So few women have any clear idea of the power their ordinary beauty holds over so many of us men.

It's only the dead who'll tell you the truth.

Things you plan in life usually turn out to be meaningless, things you accumulate without knowing it become your real treasure.

O saving Victim, opening wide The gate of heaven to man below, Our foes press on from every side, Thine aid supply, Thy strength bestow.

He who achieves power by violence does not truly become lord or master.

One will observe that all things are arranged according to their degrees of beauty and excellence, and that the nearer they are to God, the more beautiful and better they are.

An act of love always tends towards two things; to the good that one wills, and to the person for whom one wills it.

Practical sciences proceed by building up; theoretical science by resolving into components.

Charity, by which God and neighbor are loved, is the most perfect friendship.

Now this relaxation of the mind from work consists on playful words or deeds. Therefore it becomes a wise and virtuous man to have recourse to such things at times.

In a false person, sacraments do not produce any effect.

Being born he have himself as our Companion, Eating with us he gave himself as Food, Dying He became our Ransom, Reigning he gives himself as our Reward

A scrap of knowledge about sublime things is worth more than any amount about trivialities.

It would be superfluous to receive by faith, things that can be known by natural reason

To disparage the dictate of reason is equivalent to contemning the command of God.

Now, nothing can be brought from potentiality to actual existence except through something actually existing

As the saints will rejoice in all goods, so will the damned grieve for all goods.

Not everyone who is enlightened by an angel knows that he is enlightened by him.

He that obstinately denieth the truth before men upon earth, wilfully refuseth his soul's health in heaven.

God answered the prayers of animals.

It is necessary to posit something which is necessary of itself, and has no cause of its necessity outside of itself but is the cause of necessity in other things. And all people call this thing God.

It is possible to demonstrate God's existence, although not a priori, yet a posteriori from some work of His more surely known to us.

It is unlawful to add anything to the words of Holy Scripture regarding the sense.

Godhead here in hiding, whom I adore Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art

Here 'neath veils, my Saviour darkly I behold; To my thirsting spirit all thy light unfold; Face to face in heaven let me come to thee, And the blessed vision of thy glory see.

Justice is in subjects as well as in rulers.

The custom of the Church has very great authority and ought to be jealously observed in all things.

He suddenly announced that he could not write any more since "All that I have written seems like straw to me."

I receive Thee ransom of my soul. For love of Thee have I studied and kept vigil toiled preached and taught.

The Angel's bread is made the Bread of man today.

There is nothing in your mind which wasn't experienced before hand.

So, to detract from the perfection of creatures is to detract from the perfection of divine power.

He who is drawn to something desirable does not desire to have it as a thought but as a thing.

God is not related to creatures as though belonging to a different "genus," but as transcending every "genus," and as the principle of all "genera.

Beauty adds to goodness a relation to the cognitive faculty: so that "good" means that which simply pleases the appetite; while the "beautiful" is something pleasant to apprehend.

There would not be a perfect likeness of God in the universe if all things were of one grade of being.

The same fire" (which he decides to be material) " torments the damned in hell and the just in purgatory...The least pain in purgatory exceeds the greatest in this life.

Thus Angels' Bread is made The Bread of man today: The Living Bread from Heaven With figures doth away: O wondrous gift indeed! The poor and lowly may Upon their Lord and Master feed.

Gods are called many by the error of some who worshipped many deities, thinking as they did the planets and other stars were gods, and also the separate parts of the world.

The human mind may perceive truth only through thinking, as is clear from Augustine.

The Bread of angels has become the Bread of mankind; This heavenly Bread puts an end to all images; O wonderful reality! The poor, the slave, and the humble can eat the Lord.

The liberal posture really requires a willingness to give to others, and that works, as I say, when you have an expanding pie. But if you don't have an expanding pie, everyone starts hunkering down.

Journalism is in fact history on the run.

As freedom is the only safeguard of governments, so are order and moderation generally necessary to preserve freedom.

Our estimate of a character always depends much on the manner in which that character affects our own interests and passions.

Knowledge advances by steps, and not by leaps.

Free trade, one of the greatest blessings which a government can confer on a people, is in almost every country unpopular.

The history of nations, in the sense in which I use the word, is often best studied in works not professedly historical.

If the Sunday had not been observed as a day of rest during the last three centuries, I have not the slightest doubt that we should have been at this moment a poorer people and less civilized.

The Saviour of mankind Himself, in whose blameless life malice could find no act to impeach, has been called in question for words spoken.